Take Her
by weatheredlaw
Summary: Taboos didn't matter when you were dead. George/Rube


**A/N:** Why is this my favorite _Dead Like Me_ ship? I don't know. But the porn bug is still buzzing.

**Summary:** Taboos didn't matter when you were dead.

**Take Her**

She looks at me. I don't know what it is about her. Five years ago, she was a little girl, hanging onto my every word. Trying to spite me. Trying to make me proud. Confused and hurt and desperately needing to explore the world she had been thrown into without warning. Without anyone asking her.

I know she feels these things because I felt the same way.

"You okay Peanut?" She smiles because she pretends to hate that nickname. But I know she likes it.

"Just tired." I nod, pressing a sticky note into her hand.

"This one's for us." She sighs and gives me a small grin. She likes reaping with me. Makes her feel like she's one of the boys, she says. "Come on." It's late. I've been holding onto this one for the day, mostly because I want to spend time with her. Mostly because something inside of me is telling me that she won't want me forever. That she probably doesn't now. But the tiniest bit of my heart says that there can be a chance. And I feel like if I don't take it now, that window of opportunity will close.

Haunted by her face at night, I dream of touching her.

She is smooth and lithe and willing. But perhaps in reality, she will be rough and angry and closed off. She will hate me. Forever. More than she pretends to sometimes now. We play these little games with one another, pushing and pushing until one of us actually does flip, usually her. She slides into the passenger seat of my pickup truck with grace and experience. I take a deep breath. She is eighteen. I am...I am beyond her. She could have any boy she wants. But she chooses none of them.

I had pegged her for the kind of girl who might go after Mason, but he's too erratic for her. Too combustible. Or so I think. I like to pretend I know what's going on in her head, when in actuality I know very little. She's as much of an enigma to me these days as I was to her those years ago. I still am, I like to think. But part of me knows she has me figured out. Wrapped around her finger. I'll do most anything for her, albeit with a bit of chagrin. With reluctance. But I always want to do something for her. She's special to me. Daisy mocks me for it. Roxy knows me too well. Mason whispers to me about it in his drunken stupors as I half carry, half drag him home.

"You want Georgie. We can all see it."

"You shut your damn mouth."

"She wants you, too, I bet. Georgia. Georgia Belle." _Georgia Belle_, I think to himself. And mentally, I thank Mason for a new way to see her. "Just take her Rube. I bet she'd like it that way." He falls asleep as I drop him on his bed. "Take her," he murmurs.

_Take her._

It sounds so romantic, doesn't it? To sweep her up and whisk her into some dark corner of a dark room where no one can see. Put my hands all over her. Kiss her. She's lovely and young and there is nothing to stop me, right here in the truck, from pulling over, locking the doors, and pressing myself to her. Except for her eyes. She glances over at me. Maybe she sees my desire. Maybe it's burning hotter behind my own eyes than I thought. A small, wise smile passes over her lips. Almost like she's telling me to wait. But there's no way for her to know, so my fantasies continue.

"I like to watch you reap," she says quietly as I look for the person who should be at the bridge. "You're so calm about it all."

"I've had a lot of experience."

And then, in the most teasing voice, "Experience in what, exactly, Rube?" And she smiles and I nearly dive off the edge of that bridge, just to cool myself off.

"Peanut," I say in a mock warning voice. A small man walks from the shadows of the trees behind up. He shivers and goes up to the bridge.

"You're on," she whispers in my ear. And then she is hidden from sight behind the truck. I shake off the feeling and walk up to the near-suicidal man and do my job. He decides not to jump and gets hit by a truck instead. "Some kind of twisted, poetic justice," she mutters as his soul stands near us. Rain begins to fall and, in moments, she is soaked and I'm soaked and trying not to look at her and see what I can see. She grins wryly at me as the jumper's lights come and he is taken off to wherever. To places I used to want to go, but now never wish to know because this small and delicate girl, no...woman. She is standing in front of me, suddenly so close.

"You're terrible at hiding things," she says, the rain nearly drowning her out, except that I am perceptive enough to know every word she says. Her voice is loudest to me of all.

"I'm sorry." And that is the moment I throw away all inhibition and kiss her.

I almost expect her to slap me. Push me away. But she doesn't. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls herself up, twisting her legs around my waste. She is the coolness to the fire burning in my mouth, her tongue like ice, her lips nearly blue. I trail my tongue down her neck and she arches, moaning quietly against me. Her throat buzzes with want and need and I know if I don't do something now, then tonight will hang like wire between us, always pulling us taught as we push away, drawing us nearer in our solitude.

Against the side of the truck, I take her, just like Mason said I should. She is better at this than I thought, working my belt with expert hands. I am a fool to think she's never touched a man this way before. That no one has ever taken her. She grins madly as she dips my hand below her waste and then closes her eyes. But I don't want this. Not like this. I want her in other ways. For a moment, I humor her, touching her this way. But I pull away and slip her wet jeans down, press against her.

Take her.

She cries out. No, she's not a virgin. But it's been a while. She grasps my neck and groans as I slowly push into her, then out. She says my name. Her breath is ragged. _Georgia. Georgia Belle. Belle._ My name again. Over and over and over until it dissolves into cries and noises and fumbles and a rush and then-

Nothing. She digs her nails into my back and cries out one more time. I tense and shudder and come down from my place wherever I was. We are wet and hot and heady. She is shaking. Her skin is cold, my hands are warm. Her eyes are a little blank. Then she blinks and looks at me. And for a moment, I think she is afraid.

"What did we do?"

"I..." I can't tell her. She turns away from me and dresses. I do the same. We get in the truck.

"What did we do?" she says again.

"Whatever you'd like to call it."

"Have you always wanted that?"

"....No. Not always. More recently than anything else." She nods because she is wiser than one would think. "Are you angry?"

"Angry? I was there. I kissed you. I asked for it. It's not like I can say I don't want the same thing. I didn't...didn't want the same thing. I...I did. Probably longer than you did." These words surprise me. "You couldn't tell? Mason could. He used to tease me for it all the time. But then he stopped. Probably because I just...never showed it."

"I wish I'd known."

"Would it have changed anything?" she snaps.

"I don't understand why you're so upset. I thought-"

"You think too much, Rube."

"Peanut-"

"Don't call me that right now."

Women.

I will never understand them.

"Georgia."

"...Yes?"

"I'm sorry." She smiles and sighs.

"Me, too, Rube." Her cold hand covers my own and we ride like this for a while.

We never touch one another this way again. And it does become the wire pulling us tight. But we can share that secret smile. That warm look every once in a while. I know who she is. I know how she is. I know where she goes.

I took her.

No.

She took me.

And if she never gives me back, then I don't think I'll ever care.


End file.
